Maschio’s Food Services, which provides cafeteria service to the city schools and the recreation program, distributed the more than 1,700 pounds of produce during the summer recreation program’s annual barbecue.

“We started this to give the kids an idea of where their food comes from, and expose them to some different things,” said Frank Maschio, the company’s president.

The Farmers’ Market program has been running for about five years. And it is typically coupled with the recreation program’s barbecue.

The whole thing was a surprise and immediate relief to 10-year-old Joshua Aymar, who joined the summer camp for the first time this year.

“I didn’t have time to eat breakfast,” he said.

Younger children were provided with bags prefilled with fruits including apples, peaches and oranges. Older children could select from a wider variety that included peppers, zucchini and squash.

Emily Velez, 9, said that her mother never has to force her to eat her greens, and her mom often makes fruit salad, which is one of her favorites. She didn’t have an idea of what recipes might emerge from her groceries.

“I’m just going to give it to my mom,” she said.

The Farmers’ Market in the recreation program is not the only program in the city trying to get kids to eat their veggies: Roosevelt School 7 used a joint grant awarded in May from the state Department of Agriculture and the football Jets to revive an in-classroom fruits and vegetable program that supplemented school breakfasts and lunches for the remainder of the 2013-14 school year.

The federal government had provided a grant that funded a similar program in the school, but the school lost it for the past school year.